Historian Tom Holland was guest-editing the 'Today' programme on BBC Radio 4 recently. He spoke about his experience of AI 'hallucinations', that now increasingly well-known phenomenon whereby Artifical Intelligence makes up information in response to a question. Tom...
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I seem to have read an unusually high number of books this year - surprising, because it was a unusually busy year. Looking back, I realise that long train journeys provided hours of reading time. I often took two books with me on a trip in order not to run out of...
I have been proofreading my book about Nocturnes, which has reached the stage of being typeset. This is the point at which it starts to look like a proper book. As the author, you dare to believe that it will one day really be published and start to live in heads...
Today I learned that my book The Piano - a History in 100 Pieces has been named as a Book of the Year 2021 in the Presto Music Awards. I feel very fortunate that it has now been chosen as a Book of the Year in The Spectator, the Financial Times and the Presto Music...
An exhilarating moment in an otherwise quiet stretch of autumn: Jenny Colgan has chosen my piano book as one of her Books of the Year in The Spectator (the print edition comes out on 13 November). She calls it 'one of the two most beautiful books I got my hands on...
Renowned piano teacher and educator Murray McLachlan has reviewed my book in International Piano: https://www.rhinegold.co.uk/international_piano/the-piano-a-history-in-100-pieces/ To read more reviews of this book, click here
The quarterly magazine Musical Opinion has a review of my book in its October-December 2021 issue. Some excerpts from Julian Jacobson's review: 'Susan Tomes' new book is aimed at the informed amateur or mélomane, in the untranslatable French word: the Radio 3 (perhaps...
Another nice review of The Piano - a History in 100 Pieces, this time on David Barton Music, the website of an educator and researcher. He begins with a description of the book's contents - and here's how he sums up: 'Tomes explores each selected piece in turn,...
The October issue of the venerable Gramophone magazine has a review of my new book. I reproduce some of it here as the magazine is behind a paywall. The reviewer, Jeremy Nicholas, has quibbles about my choice of pieces, wondering why I included this and not that, but...
I did an interview this week about my new book for Piano Street, a Swedish-based website which celebrates all things to do with the piano, pianists and news from the piano world. They asked some interesting questions. The interview is up on their site now and can be...
A review of my book has popped up on Pianodao, a website devoted to the piano, pianists and piano education. You can read the whole review by clicking here. For now, some excerpts: 'Before the last rays of summer settle into the colours of autumn, let me tell you...
A reader has sent me a photo of my new book on his garden table in rural Western Australia (see photo). It's astonishing to me to think of this book, a copy of which I have photographed on my own garden table, flying to the other side of the world to start a...
Last night I did an 'author event' - the first in-person event of this year - at Toppings Bookshop in Edinburgh. This bookshop, fairly new to Edinburgh, has been beautifully designed around the many interestingly-shaped rooms of the historic building. Curved wooden...
My book The Piano - a History in 100 Pieces has just been reviewed by ArtMuseLondon. Some excerpts: '...This book is not simply a chronology of the piano, not by any means; but rather a detailed exploration of some of the greatest music composed for the instrument as...
There's a review by Gulliver Ralston of my new book in the August 2021 issue of Literary Review. As part of it is behind a paywall, some excerpts: '...Completed just as lockdown began in the UK last March, these short essays open worlds of sound and history,...